Book Club: Conquest and Empire

[Paralus]

Hi Paralus/Rowdy,
I thought your new avatar was you at first. Was thinking, wow, never guessed Paralus was so good-looking! But now I see it’s really Clint Eastwood, isn’t it?
That is so cool that your real boat is called Paralus too. Hope the repairs are doing well.

Unfortunately neither Clint nor myself look like that any more! I ran it due to the fact that Agesilaos decided my addiction to wagons (on the Persian numbers - Issos thread) would necessitate him calling me "Rowdy" (Yates).

The Paralus is running sweetly thank you. I took Joshua (the thirteen year old) and his mate down to Burrinjuck Dam (some three hours from Sydney) and scared the bejesus out of 'em by towing them about the lake at some 65 kph! After the cost of replacement parts that is a huge relief. High tech outboards!!



As can be readily seen, Josh is wearing his "Tube and Yoke" floatation corselet. He did not nick it from Ilium...

Right, that makes sense, I’m happy to believe that Alexander was far too good a commander to go rushing off, at least not too far. But he must have gone a certain distance, mustn’t he, or they wouldn’t have come upon the Persian centre and centre right from behind.
Many thanks for all these useful and interesting comments.
Fiona

Alexander devised tactics which lulled the Persians into a response to his feint on the Macedonian far right (the march to the right and extended wing). As a result, at the other end, the Macedonian left became increasingly outflanked until it was seriously outnumbered. Alexander knew full well that the Persian right would furiously exploit their resultant advantage and that the danger of collapse was real and very much a matter of time; after all, he'd planned it this way.

From the other end of the Macedonian line Alexander had to, in some fashion, come to his left's assistance. Arrian describes (not terribly well) the formation of a wedge that Alexander drove at the Persian centre-left. The objective here will have been the Persian centre and, heroic King-on-king thematics aside, this meant he had to drive into the Persian line and then left so as to reach and / or envelop the centre where Darius was. This because at the time he launched his wedge, Alexander was no longer opposite Darius. The description of the scythed chariots (on the Persian left wing) driving at the Companions confirms this. Alexander did not charge across the front of his infantry; he straightened and charged forward then left to force the Persians onto his advancing battle line of sarissae.

Stories of Parmenion sending messengers after an Alexander in full pursuit must be just that. How would someone from the distant left wing ever know where to look in all that mayhem and dust? Alexander had to be pushing left and, with the flight of Darius - after his troops began deserting, he rails that the quarry is running and then contends with the Persians of the centre attempting to escape what appears a certain death trap.

I've always thought that much of this appears in the Alexander mosaic - a piece of of art I've always thought of as a montage of the three battles rather than Issos.

Without a time machine we're never to know though....

[Fiona]

2:10 Babylonia and Persis

Another great summary, focusing on the progress through Babylon, Susa and Persis. Perhaps predictably, the brilliant operation at the Persian Gates has to be qualified by a mention of the initial attack as being a ‘rash blunder’, and the sack of the city of Persepolis is an ‘act of outrage on a helpless populace’, with no mention of the fact that Babylon and Susa were not sacked.
Still, never mind, it’s a truly admirable summary and I don’t actually think I’ve got any burning questions this week, apart perhaps from talking about money.
This is where the big money kicks in, and Alexander takes charge of vast quantities of bullion.
This conjures up images of mountains of gleaming gold and silver bars, but perhaps that image is too modern. What would all this bullion have looked like? And where did the Persians get it from, and why did they just hoard it?
Alexander seems immediately to have started using it, and I’d be very interested to read what an economist would say about the effects of all this money coming into circulation. You’d think it would produce inflation (cf influx of gold into Europe from Americas in C16th AD) but it doesn’t seem to have done.
I asked someone about this once, who doesn’t know about Alexander but understands the markets, and he said it would only produce inflation if there was already enough money in the system. He said it sounded to him as if what Alexander poured out was so badly needed it had the effect of stimulating the world economy.
If so, then that was clearly a very useful thing to do, and one which Alexander doesn’t seem to get much credit for.
OK, he probably didn’t know that would happen, and he was probably only thinking of practical military things like getting funds back to Antipater, paying troops, etc, but still, he was a spender and a giver-away, not a hoarder, and this is a most attractive trait IMHO.
I liked this sentence at the end of the chapter:
“Unlike the Spartans, who had sold themselves to the Great King, Alexander had destroyed the centre of his power.”
I think Professor Bosworth means it a bit sarcastically, but I like it fine as it stands.
Fiona

[Paralus]

2:10 Babylonia and Persis

Another great summary, focusing on the progress through Babylon, Susa and Persis. Perhaps predictably, the brilliant operation at the Persian Gates has to be qualified by a mention of the initial attack as being a ‘rash blunder’, and the sack of the city of Persepolis is an ‘act of outrage on a helpless populace’, with no mention of the fact that Babylon and Susa were not sacked.

With respect to the first, a blunder is a blunder is a stuff-up. For whatever reason Alexander “rushed” a prepared and heavily defended position. Perhaps he feared the removal of the plunder but the decision to frontally attack such a well prepared position was a costly error. He seems to have forgotten Thermopylae.

The cities of Babylon and Susa were not sacked precisely because they were not Persepolis. Babylon was not a Persian city and Susa, despite is long history as a “capital” of the empire, was not, originally, Persian. Persepolis was the Persian city; the “Capital of Empire” and the focal point of Persian power. It was (still is) here that the glories of Persia past were – literally – writ large. There was no pressing or ideological reason to sack Babylon, Susa, Pasargadae, or Ecbatana.

To look at it another way, the Thebans did not press Sparta to sack Samos at the Peloponnesian War’s end. They did, though, want all that was the heart of empire trashed: Athens.

This conjures up images of mountains of gleaming gold and silver bars, but perhaps that image is too modern. What would all this bullion have looked like? And where did the Persians get it from, and why did they just hoard it?

Tribute of many a nation and over many a year. The Great King seemed the most parsimonious individual in the ancient world. We have records of him offering sums to various cities at times (the Corinthian war for example) and some of these are little more than pocket silver. I imagine that once a “nest egg” becomes a hoard it becomes somewhat self-feeding. There comes a stage when it is somewhat difficult to spend enough to meaningfully effect it.

Alexander and his Successors spent it incontinently until it seemingly ran out (at Cyinda) after the close of the campaign of Ispsos.

“Unlike the Spartans, who had sold themselves to the Great King, Alexander had destroyed the centre of his power.”

I think Professor Bosworth means it a bit sarcastically, but I like it fine as it stands.

He means it the way it reads I’d think and so it addresses your point above about Persepolis.

The Spartans sold the Asian Greeks for Persian money and ships in 411 and they did so again at the close of the 390s. After war’s end thinking that Cyrus, a friend, might be a better bet they backed him – each way of course as he might (and duly did) fail. They then more openly disregarded their alliance with Persia and sent three strategoi to Asia: Thibron, Dercylidas and, finally, Agesilaos. The first two played at war and, on occasion, alienated allies in the process. The last, propaganda aside, alternately marched at one satrap and then the other making “treaties” and war depending upon whose lands he happened to be in and what he was in need of. Finally, there being no great “march up country”, the Great King, tiring of such ingratitude, financed Pharnabazus and Conon and supplied them a large naval force. At the same time he ensured funds reached those in Greece (including Sparta’s erstwhile allies) who were “in revolt” to finance a war (the Corinthian ) that the Oxyrhynchus historian (as opposed to Xenophon) makes plain was already underway. The result, in short summary, was the crushing of Spartan naval power in the Aegean and the revival of Athens.

This led to Antalcidas travelling to the King to seek rapprochement. Antalcidas managed to convince the Persians that a fully rervived Athens was not their best result and he was, inevitably, supplied with money and ships to neuter Athenian naescent imperialism under Thrasybulus. The result was the King’s Peace with Sparta as prostatai of that peace. Xenophon is silent on the fact that Sparta is Persia’s anointed (this is only important twenty years later when the “mongrel” Thebans achieve this in 367/6).

Xenophon, in fact, would have it that the Great King was now “an ally of the Lacedaemonians” (Hell. 5.1.25) and that this fact – along with the triremes financed by the King which had blocked the corn route through the Hellespont – made the fearful Athenians, Corinthians and Argives sue for a peace. This Sparta was happy to accommodate as she was “out of patience with the war” (ibid, 5.1.29). Thus, as Xenophon would tell us, the waring, meddlesome and recalcitrant Greeks - Sparta aside - were coerced into a peace. The rescript of this peace is as follows (ibid, 5.1.31):

“King Artaxerxes thinks it just that the cities in Asia should belong to him, as well as Clazomenae and Cyprus among the islands, and that the other Greek cities, both small and great, should be left independent, except Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros; and these should belong, as of old, to the Athenians. But whichever of the two parties does not accept this peace, upon them I will make war, in company with those who desire this arrangement, both by land and by sea, with ships and with money.”

But it was not simply the other Greek states that were forced to this peace. Xenophon’s silence aside, epigraphic evidence clearly records that “the King (his representative at the formal signing in Sparta) was joined with the Athenians and the Spartans and the rest of the Greeks” at the swearing. Xenophon does not note this as it clearly spells out the price Sparta paid for its Persian money and ships: the Greeks of Asia.

Such was to remain the cornerstone of Spartan power – and the Persian alliance – until supplanted by the medising and traitorous (in Xenophon’s eyes) Thebans. Hence Bosworth’s note.

[amyntoros]

Alexander seems immediately to have started using it, and I’d be very interested to read what an economist would say about the effects of all this money coming into circulation. You’d think it would produce inflation (cf influx of gold into Europe from Americas in C16th AD) but it doesn’t seem to have done.
I asked someone about this once, who doesn’t know about Alexander but understands the markets, and he said it would only produce inflation if there was already enough money in the system. He said it sounded to him as if what Alexander poured out was so badly needed it had the effect of stimulating the world economy.
If so, then that was clearly a very useful thing to do, and one which Alexander doesn’t seem to get much credit for.

OK, he probably didn’t know that would happen, and he was probably only thinking of practical military things like getting funds back to Antipater, paying troops, etc, but still, he was a spender and a giver-away, not a hoarder, and this is a most attractive trait IMHO.

Well, I see Paralus has noted that "Alexander and his Successors spent it incontinently until it seemingly ran out (at Cyinda) after the close of the campaign of Ispsos." The thing is, you have to spend the money on something or someone, and although a great deal of expense must have gone on provisioning the armies, both Alexander's and the Successors', the soldiers themselves were also direct recipients of some of the wealth. And a good deal of it appears to have made it back home. In Greek Gold: Jewelry from the Age of Alexander the authors say that:

After the defeat of Darius, quantities of precious metal hitherto unknown poured from the captured Persian treasuries into the hands of Alexander and his soldiery. Not long thereafter even greater wealth was forthcoming from the foreign mines now pressed into the service of the conquerors.

The effect on Greece of this sudden deluge of gold was on the one hand a colossal inflation which wrecked the Greek economy at the end of the fourth century, and on the other hand the proliferation of gold jewelry to which our exhibition bears witness. As Macedonia began to be systematically excavated, the extent of this phenomenal expansion in the production of gold jewelry can, for the first time, be appraised.

If I'm understanding this correctly it seems that while the new wealth was good for Macedonia (plus other conquered areas where Macedonians settled) it had the opposite effect on Greece itself. Unfortunately there's no reference given for the statement about inflation and I'd be interested in learning more.

Best regards,

[SKY]

One silver tetradrachm was a soldier's monthly pay.
No wonder he had so many mints going at once.

[Fiona]

With respect to the first, a blunder is a blunder is a stuff-up. For whatever reason Alexander “rushed” a prepared and heavily defended position. Perhaps he feared the removal of the plunder but the decision to frontally attack such a well prepared position was a costly error. He seems to have forgotten Thermopylae.

Oh, I'll buy 'costly error', no problem - but 'rash blunder' is a bit perjorative and judgmental, I think. It's all in the choice of words!
Thanks for all the details about exactly what the Spartans did, in comparison with Alexander. I guess that even there, they were doing what seemed right at the time. It sounds as if they were pretty desperate round about then.
Fiona

[Fiona]

In Greek Gold: Jewelry from the Age of Alexander the authors say that:

After the defeat of Darius, quantities of precious metal hitherto unknown poured from the captured Persian treasuries into the hands of Alexander and his soldiery. Not long thereafter even greater wealth was forthcoming from the foreign mines now pressed into the service of the conquerors.

The effect on Greece of this sudden deluge of gold was on the one hand a colossal inflation which wrecked the Greek economy at the end of the fourth century, and on the other hand the proliferation of gold jewelry to which our exhibition bears witness. As Macedonia began to be systematically excavated, the extent of this phenomenal expansion in the production of gold jewelry can, for the first time, be appraised.

If I'm understanding this correctly it seems that while the new wealth was good for Macedonia (plus other conquered areas where Macedonians settled) it had the opposite effect on Greece itself. Unfortunately there's no reference given for the statement about inflation and I'd be interested in learning more.

Best regards,

Thanks, amyntoros, that's interesting - so this writer thinks there was inflation. I've not seen that before, the idea that the Greek economy was wrecked. I'll keep an eye open for any more references to this.
Fiona

[Fiona]

One silver tetradrachm was a soldier's monthly pay.
No wonder he had so many mints going at once.

Indeed, yes, he had a lot of men to pay. There were even portable mints they could take with them on campaign, according to Frank Holt in his book about the elephant medallions.
Fiona

[Semiramis]

If I'm understanding this correctly it seems that while the new wealth was good for Macedonia (plus other conquered areas where Macedonians settled) it had the opposite effect on Greece itself. Unfortunately there's no reference given for the statement about inflation and I'd be interested in learning more.
Best regards,

Hi Amyntoros,

Do you think the release of the metal in this fashion would have steepened the financial hierarchy between conquerers and conquered compared to the Persian era?

Semiramis

Ps. Happy New Year all...

[Fiona]

2:11 The Occupation of Eastern Iran

I always find that it’s easy to get all the Persian satraps muddled up, so I was very pleased to read in this chapter a really good summary of who by this point still remained with Darius and which satrapies were theirs, and even better, their loyalty, or lack of it, to Darius, and their possible motives.
Another striking thing about this chapter is Alexander’s speed. It’s great to see him getting credit for his astonishingly fast responses to the changing situation.
Whether a decision was the right one or not, he made it fast, and having made it, he acted upon it fast, too. Decisive, that’s the word that comes to mind. With Alexander, there is never any messing about.
One thing that does come through clearly here is how many of these decisive actions are in fact reactions. There seems to be almost a chain of them.
Alexander gets news that Darius is on the move, and then leaves Persepolis – if Darius had removed himself from view, gone into voluntary exile of some kind, would Alexander have moved east? Without this need, would he even have split his army? Bosworth seems to imply that the isolation of Parmenion was deliberate, but it seems to have been forced upon them by the need to make a rapid pursuit.
Once Darius is dead, and the army is resting at Hecatompylus, the picture is clear that the war is over. Alexander’s magnanimity to his dead rival and those of his supporters who surrendered are no more than we’d expect of his generous nature. There are mopping-up operations and then the reunion of half the army at Zadracarta, a good long rest and sacrifices and games. It depends whose chronology you follow, but it does just make me wonder a bit if Alexander himself didn’t think that was the end of it – until Bessus proclaimed himself king.
Once provoked, he had to react, and so the next things are set in chain – the release of the Greek contingent, the pursuit of Bessus, the appointment of Satibarzanes, and Alexander’s adoption of some items of Persian royal dress.
Then Satibarzanes’ treachery provokes another response, and so it goes on… what it makes me wonder is just when Alexander conceived the idea of becoming an actual king of Asia himself, if he even did. He may well have been the most decisive human who’s ever lived, but he was still only in his twenties. Most of the young men in their twenties that I’ve ever known don’t seem to think past next week, and Alexander, more than most by the look of it, lived in the here-and-now.
We’ll never get to the bottom of it, of course, with a complex nature like his, but the really interesting thing here is just what was going on in his mind.
Sometimes, the conquest and empire is presented to us as if Alexander had some grand plan soundly formulated and ruthlessly pursued, but this chapter, more than most, puts me more in mind of an adventurous young man doing what seemed like the most interesting and exciting thing at the time, as opportunity presented itself, and dealing with the consequences along the way.
Fiona

[amyntoros]

If I'm understanding this correctly it seems that while the new wealth was good for Macedonia (plus other conquered areas where Macedonians settled) it had the opposite effect on Greece itself. Unfortunately there's no reference given for the statement about inflation and I'd be interested in learning more.
Best regards,

Hi Amyntoros,

Do you think the release of the metal in this fashion would have steepened the financial hierarchy between conquerers and conquered compared to the Persian era?

Semiramis

Hmm, good question. I would think so, because in the Persian era the conquerors didn't spread their wealth around with quite the same abandon as Alexander. Yes, there were gifts and bribes back in the day, but the biggest difference in Hellenistic times, as far as I can figure, is that even lower eschelons of the armies (and mercenaries?) ended up being comparatively wealthy men, and they moved and settled all over the known Greek world. A good portion of recovered Hellenistic gold jewelry has been found in Macedonia, but there are pieces from Aeolis, Lydia, northern Black Sea sites, Thessaly, Alexandria, and southern Italy, amongst others. As I said before, I'd love to have more detail. There must be, at the very least, one book which covers the subject but I'm not sure where to start searching.

Best regards,

[Semiramis]

It depends whose chronology you follow, but it does just make me wonder a bit if Alexander himself didn’t think that was the end of it – until Bessus proclaimed himself king.
Once provoked, he had to react, and so the next things are set in chain – the release of the Greek contingent, the pursuit of Bessus, the appointment of Satibarzanes, and Alexander’s adoption of some items of Persian royal dress.
Then Satibarzanes’ treachery provokes another response, and so it goes on… what it makes me wonder is just when Alexander conceived the idea of becoming an actual king of Asia himself, if he even did.

Hi Fiona,

Doesn't it seem like Bessus - being an Achaemenid - had a more legitimate claim to the throne than Alexander? It can't be surprising, then, that he would have supporters from the ranks of the satraps. Surely Alexander would have expected local opposition - especially in the Persian heartland - to his usurpation of the empire? Early twenties or not, can we really go along with the idea that a shrewd politician like Alexander had only envisioned rose petals and rice from that area after a bloody invasion?

Sometimes, the conquest and empire is presented to us as if Alexander had some grand plan soundly formulated and ruthlessly pursued, but this chapter, more than most, puts me more in mind of an adventurous young man doing what seemed like the most interesting and exciting thing at the time, as opportunity presented itself, and dealing with the consequences along the way.

Simply looking at the map of Alexander's numerous wars and conquests, there can be no doubt about at least short to medium term planning on Alexander's part. He would not have been so successful otherwise. The Mediterranean, Egypt, Persia, India all contained highly organized civilizations that were already ancient by Alexander's time. They would not have become so if they were easy to conquer. As for long-term vision, one could always argue that Alexander, from a young age, had an appetite for organized violence that simply could not be sated.

Your description of Alexander's wars of aggression, mass killings and enslavement, razing of cities, terrorizing of entire populations etc. as "adventurous", "interesting" and "exciting" reminds me of some of the popular ideas from the Romantic Nationalists. It has been argued that the popularization of this view of war through culture was what made the two world wars in the 20th century possible. Poetry, literature, paintings or even opera primed the population in Europe to accept war as something positive.

However, once the great wars had been fought, much of the cultural contribution from the soldiers in those very wars seem to paint a less glamorous picture violence and conquest. From what I can glean from his writings, Bosworth, of all the historians of Alexander that I have come across, has been most averse to glorifying violence or repression.

[Semiramis]

Hmm, good question. I would think so, because in the Persian era the conquerors didn't spread their wealth around with quite the same abandon as Alexander. Yes, there were gifts and bribes back in the day, but the biggest difference in Hellenistic times, as far as I can figure, is that even lower eschelons of the armies (and mercenaries?) ended up being comparatively wealthy men, and they moved and settled all over the known Greek world. A good portion of recovered Hellenistic gold jewelry has been found in Macedonia, but there are pieces from Aeolis, Lydia, northern Black Sea sites, Thessaly, Alexandria, and southern Italy, amongst others. As I said before, I'd love to have more detail. There must be, at the very least, one book which covers the subject but I'm not sure where to start searching.

Best regards,

Hi Amyntoros,

From what Paralus says, one couldn't really state that the Great King was stingy with his Darics when it came to some Greeks at least.

[Paralus]

Your description of Alexander's wars of aggression, mass killings and enslavement, razing of cities, terrorizing of entire populations etc. as "adventurous", "interesting" and "exciting" reminds me of some of the popular ideas from the Romantic Nationalists. It has been argued that the popularization of this view of war through culture was what made the two world wars in the 20th century possible.

Bosworth, Cortes and Alexander (Alexander The Great in Fact and Fiction pp 38-39):

Nobody describes what it was like to be spitted by a sarisa with its ferocious leaf-shaped blade fifty centimetres long (although the Alexander mosaic gives a visual representation). As a result one becomes immune to the casualty figures…

Few commanders have been more expert than Alexander in creating the conditions for mass slaughter, and his troops developed a terrible efficiency in killing. The conquest came at a high price in blood and agony. Vast areas in the west may have fallen to him without serious resistance, but from the great rebellion in Sogdiana in the summer of 329 to his invasion of the Makran in October 325 there was almost continuous fighting, scores of towns destroyed and whole populations, civilian and military alike, massacred.

Once Darius is dead, and the army is resting at Hecatompylus, the picture is clear that the war is over. Alexander’s magnanimity to his dead rival and those of his supporters who surrendered are no more than we’d expect of his generous nature. It depends whose chronology you follow, but it does just make me wonder a bit if Alexander himself didn’t think that was the end of it – until Bessus proclaimed himself king.

The war of the propaganda machine - liberation, revenge and retribution - is over. From Persepolis on (and more so the death of Darius) it became a war of liberation of the Persians from, aparrently, themselves. After that other peoples from the Persians all of whom had the old regime replaced by the new. Meet the new boss...

Don't go too far with the "generous nature" topos: the conqueror made great play of those of the Persian nobility who “came over to his side”. This was all part of the legitimising process wherein he claims Darius cannot even command the loyalty of those close to him. After Gaugamela and Persepolis it becomes a matter of finding those – of the existing administration structure – he can trust to manage the new conquests.

Alexander was, in my opinion, always going on after Darius’ death. The source tradition depicts him as wanting to assert his control over those dominions that the Achaemenids had controlled. In any case, he was not about to draw a border, the other side of which, were those as yet to be "pacified" or subdued. His error was to underestimate the resistance to his claims and believe this could be done sans the Greek troops and others he was prepared to release (aside from those who continued as mercenaries) after Darius’ death.

That resistance coalesced around a relative of the Great King – Bessus. This was serious as the man had claims on the throne and others rallied to him. Alexander’s response is the increase in Persian nobility at court and Persian court protocol. Part of this was a group of “distinguished persons (Persians) to act as his guards”(doryphoroi) amongst whom was Oxyartes, the dead king’s brother. Alexander even distributes the “royal” purple amongst his hetairoi and so has his purpurati as did the Persian kings. This contrasts the conqueror as the legitimate king rather than the usurper and regicide Bessus.

[amyntoros]

Hi Amyntoros,

From what Paralus says, one couldn't really state that the Great King was stingy with his Darics when it came to some Greeks at least.

True, true, but I think the operative word above is "some", as in some Greeks, versus a great many Macedonians. The Great King gave a comparatively small number of gifts and bribes whilst (also from what Paralus says) the Successors eventually emptied the coffers to pay for their campaigns. Accordingly, almost all the stored wealth of the Persian king ended up being redistributed. At least, that's how I think it went ...

Best regards,